


Seen This Played Out In My Dream

by phoenixburncold



Category: Mystery Skulls, Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Death, Nightmares, One Shot, Oneshot, after Lewis dies, arthur's not having a good time y'all, before the events of Ghost, nightmares of death, probably, warning because of graphic death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixburncold/pseuds/phoenixburncold
Summary: Arthur keeps getting nightmares.
Kudos: 27





	Seen This Played Out In My Dream

Arthur’s falling into a deep hole. He’s not sure how he got here, but he knows he’s falling backward fast enough to make his hair blow into his face. Green mist threads through the blackness, a sickly color that stinks of rot and malice. “Help!” he cries. It echoes over and over as if he’s in a well, “Help! Help! Help!” After a while it stops sounding like a desperate cry and like something in the darkness is taunting him, the voice changing from his own to someone else’s.

His fall is abruptly halted, but the relief Arthur might have felt is drowned out by agony. He’s landed on ice crystals, sharp and thick enough to rip his arm off, tear through his ribs, heart, and lung, and break his legs. He gags against the blood filling his mouth, breathing the liquid instead of air.

Arthur bolts up, still gagging as he bends over himself, gripping his stomach with his only arm. Greedily, he sucks in air between his coughing and gagging. It’s a few minutes before he can untwist himself. The stub of his missing arm aches, still feeling as if it was just severed. His rational side registers that was probably the cause of the nightmare, but the paranoid side can’t forget the vaguely familiar smell of the strange mist, nor the voice that seemed to distort from his own. 

Arthur glances around the room. It’s his own, not some motel room or the back of the Mystery Skulls Van. His uncle Lance’s is across the hallway. It is a small little home, but it was better than he had before. A lava lamp on his nightstand that Arthur turns on once it gets dark lights up the room in a calming blue. There are two tables in the room, one covered in mechanical gear and his latest project, a small work light holding a corner throughout the years he’s been here. Galaham is still sleeping peacefully in his cage on the second table, his front paws twitching. His wheels are to the side of the nest he sleeps in, within reach for the little critter. 

Arthur smiles at the sight, before realizing he’s rubbing the barely healed stub of his left arm. It’s painful and Arthur knows he’s not going to go back to sleep anytime soon. He does a few exercises the physical therapist at the hospital taught him, it helps a little. He glances at the clock that declares he got three hours and some change of sleep. _Better than last night,_ Arthur thinks before pulling his legs over the side of the bed and standing. He gently settles a thick blanket over Galaham’s cage to keep the light from waking him and turns on his work light.

His current project is an arm. Hindered by being one-handed, this project feels like it’s taking _ages_ to get right. The rational part of Arthur chides gently. He is lucky to be alive. He should have bled out in that cave after whatever it was ripped off his arm. Whatever happened, he knew Mystery had saved his life, dragging Arthur to the van where Vivi had been waiting for them. He had no idea how she missed Lewis’s exit from the cave, but he understood her panic. Hell, he had had a panic attack the first time he saw the mess that was left of his arm and that was after the doctors had gotten to it. They had amputated the limb just a little above the bite, leaving Arthur with only two and a half inches of a left arm. Doctors and nurses were amazed he made it through with as little damage as he did. “You’re lucky it was a clean bite,” he had heard over and over in that hospital bed. “Whatever it is that got you had sharp enough fangs to rip the limb clean off instead of gnawing it off.” 

Arthur doesn’t feel lucky. Now he’s left with a mild terror every time he sees a dog, which is great when one of his best friends has a pet dog that they travel with every freaking weekend. Now his stub aches and sears and there are times he swears he still has an arm there, only for the realization to hit all over again. Now he has nightmares every night, his mind trying to connect the pain of the wound with memories he no longer has.

It’s been three months since the incident that left him without an arm and memories, three months since he lost his oldest, best friend, three months since his other closest friend somehow has no memory of their mutual friend at all. Vivi was _dating_ the guy, and now Arthur will say his name, and Vivi just goes blank. She’s since thrown away any pictures with Lewis; Arthur had to save his favorite picture of the whole team, Mystery the mascot included. When he found out she had done that, Arthur was suddenly very glad he had backed up all the pictures on his laptop months before, someday Vivi would want those back. And Lewis…wherever he was, he’d want them too. Why hadn’t he come home yet?

Gently Arthur taps his forehead with a small wrench, trying to beat the thought process away. _Focus,_ he thinks, looking down at the paper he’s been working off. The “bones” of the arm are already mostly there, a skeletal form made of metal. Wiring will be next, then the “skin”. 

It will take time, a lot of time, but Arthur’s sleepless nights help it along.


End file.
